640 , ALFRED W. G. WILSON 



reach the interior. This is equally true of most of the streams 

 flowing outward from the interior of the plateau to the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, to the Atlantic, and to Hudson Bay. The streams 

 that flow southeast into the St. Lawrence River and Gulf all cross 

 the St. Lawrence swell, before described, in deep gorges incised 

 to a depth of several hundred, and in places more than one 

 thousand, feet below the level of the plain. 

 Low states : 



The rivers entering James' Bay from the east for their entire length, pass, 

 so far as known, through Archaean country, and consequently present physi- 

 cal characters somewhat different from those on the west side. On their head- 

 waters they flow on the general level of the country and are nothing but a 

 succession of lakes connected by short stretches of rapid rivers. After they 

 have attained considerable volume and as they approach the margin of the 

 interior table-land they begin to assume a true river character ; they flow with 

 a moderate current, broken by short falls and heavy rapids, in old river val- 

 leys cut below the general level. Near the margin of the table-land the val- 

 leys become deeper, and the rivers are almost a constant succession of heavy 

 rapids and falls until they reach the lower country, where they flow with a 

 moderate current, with but few small rapids, in a distinct river valley 

 between clay and sand banks of Post-Pliocene age. (23, p. 20.) 



On the Stillwater River he notes that the country does not. 

 slope with the river, and consequently the bottom of the valley 

 for several miles above Natuakami Lake is about seven hundred 

 feet below the general level of the surrounding region. Refer- 

 ring to the Kaniapiskau, one of the streams flowing from central 

 Labrador northward to Ungava Bay, he states : 



For sixty miles below the lake [Kaniapiskau] the river, like all the streams 

 of the central area, flows nearly on a level with the general surface, or rather 

 fills all the depressions along its course, and in consequence is made up of a 

 succession of lake expansions connected by short stretches of rapids, where 

 the river is often broken into several channels by large islands. Below this 

 distance the channel contracts and in five miles the river descends more than 

 two hundred feet into a distinct valley well below the level of the surround- 

 ing country ; and from there to its mouth always follows a distinct ancient 

 valley cut down into the solid rock from 300 to 1,000 feet below the surround- 

 ing country. Between the first and the second gorge, which is about eighty 

 miles lower down stream, the river is almost a continuous succession of heavy 

 shallow rapids so bad that the stream is not used by the Indians. At the sec- 

 ond gorge or Eaton Canon, the river passes through a narrow cleft in the 



